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COMS 446: Rhetoric of Crime and Punishment

Legal Research

University Library resources and other credible websites and materials can help you find court cases, legal codes, and scholarly law review journal articles; as well as background information and definitions of terms.

Primary Sources: Court Cases & Codes

  • Westlaw 

    Legal search engine pulling from proprietary resources such as the West Key Number System, KeyCite, notes of decisions, and added search terms. Westlaw allows users to find cases, statutes, court rules, regulations, briefs, and legal news.

  • HeinOnline 

    A searchable, image-based government document and legal research database. It contains comprehensive coverage from inception of both U.S. statutory materials and more than 2,300 scholarly journals, all of the world's constitutions, all U.S. treaties, collections of classic treatises and presidential documents, and access to the full text of state and federal case law powered by Fastcase.

  • Supreme Court of the United States (The official web site of the Supreme Court. In addition to the opinions, you can also read or listen to recent oral arguments presented at the Supreme Court.)
  • GovInfo (US GPO includes official publications from all three branches of government)
  • FindLaw Cases and Codes (Search U.S. and State constitutions, statutes, cases and more. Note: FindLaw is not completely free. If you are prompted for a credit card to retrieve information, don't do it! Use HeinOnline or Westlaw legal research to find similar information about court cases or codes.)

Secondary Sources: Law Reviews, Interpretations of the Law, Reference Sources

Using Legal Databases

How to Use Westlaw

Enter your keywords in the search box (ex. cybercrime) or use the case name (i.e. Morse v. Frederick) to find information.

Screenshot indicating location of Westlaw search box


You also have the option to browse specific types of sources, court circuit, state courts, and tools.

Screenshot of Westlaw's 'Browse' section


To navigate through search results, either scroll down the page or filter results using the box on the left side of the page.

Screenshot of Westlaw search results page with page section links highlighted


The flags on the left of the cases denote how positively/negatively a case has been referenced in other proceedings or decisions.

Screenshot of search result with yellow flag highlighted


Click the box to the left of the result before choosing one of several options on how to save or email the resource.

 

How to Use HeinOnline

You have several ways to find resources in HeinOnline - you can do a search by full-text, by a specific citation, for specific publications owned by HeinOnline, or by a case law citation.

The most straightforward option is to enter your keywords in the main full text search field. In this example, enter in the specific name of a case (Morse v. Frederick).

Screenshot indicating location of search box in HeinOnline


After entering in your keywords, you'll have several tools to filter your search results. You can narrow down your results by date, title of the law review publication, topic, etc.

Screenshot of filters in HeinOnline


To access articles that come up in your results, click on the title to read the full article.

Screenshot of search result in HeinOnline with article title highlighted


You can download the PDF or email yourself the article - these options are located to the right of the article title on the results page.

Screenshot of download and sharing options in HeinOnline

You can also access download and sharing options after clicking to the article - these will be located just above the text.

Screenshot indicating download and sharing options on the article page

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